The researchers from Arizona State University have analyzed the minerals found in the fossilized ash taken out from the latest mega-eruption.

This allowed them to pinpoint the exact changes that occurred to Yellowstone right before the last eruption.

The odds of any supervolcano erupting in the near future remain small, the researchers say - but the forces that drive these rare events may move faster than anyone thought. It's just that the process by which the supervolcano might be gearing up to an explosion is happening more quickly than scientists thought.

They examined fossilised ash deposits from the last time it exploded - approximately 630,000 years ago - to collect traces of crystal that were once inside the magma chamber.

Except that if you actually read the new scientific study on the matter, as reported by The New York Times, we're not exactly on the cusp of a geological disaster in the form of ashy volcanic winter. It's even shorter than a previous study that found that another ancient supervolcano beneath California's Long Valley caldera awoke hundreds of years before its eruption. By studying layers of rock that recorded changes in temperature, pressure, and water-much like the rings on a tree, The Times notes-she and her team calculated the eruption occurred only decades after the magma poured in.

Graduate student Hannah Shamloo says, 'It's shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet and sitting there to the edge of an eruption'.